Halves, Equals, Counterparts
by cdn spg
Summary: Sometimes, when things go wrong, they go really wrong. When Harry's name comes out of the Goblet of Fire, Dumbledore hesitates - and then the Potters' world gets turned upside down.


Dumbledore's office is just the way Harry expected it to be, although the world itself is listing. Time has aged it in ways that he wouldn't have identified if he hadn't been thinking about the first time he'd ever been there, but normalcy is a commodity these days. The silver trinkets laid across the desk are still spinning and puffing away. The shelves on the walls are still stocked with books that Harry doubts he would have recognized even if he was as fanatical about them as Hermione. Fawkes' perch has ash on the gilded floor, but the bird itself has downy feathers instead of wrinkly, bare skin. He must have Burned not too long ago.

None of this is helping, though.

Harry is looking straight – at the Headmaster's desk rather than his eyes, but straight nonetheless – but his vision swims as though the vertigo that has been pressing insistently into his head has finally broken through. He's passed out before. It's a sudden fade to black, not this submergence into a world where everything is spinning in every direction at once until he's lost consciousness – but somehow, Harry doesn't yet want to rule out the possibility that he's just gotten better at seeing it coming.

Dumbledore sent a patronus to his parents once they'd reached his office, and it would be entirely too humiliating to hit the deck as soon as they stepped through the Floo, so he clenches his jaw and blinks hard to will the lightheadedness away.

He doesn't know how much time has passed since the feast – hasn't seen any of his housemates and friends since he'd left the Great Hall – and he idly wonders how they'll have reacted to all of this. When he returns to the Tower, will they have stocked the Common Room with Butterbeer and snacks from the kitchen like they do after a great Quidditch win? Or will there be yet another rehash of the Heir of Slytherin debacle? He knows they'll have questions for him regardless, but Harry doubts that he'll even have the answers for them.

Realistically, there's no way that he won't be shunned for this. With his luck? No bloody way. He and his brother are twins in every sense of the word; halves, equals, counterparts. While Will had gotten the good luck, Harry had gotten the bad. If it had been Will's name to come out of the Goblet of Fire, the whole school would be falling at his feet. Naturally, it must be that since Harry's name had come out of the Goblet, he would be effectively ostracized for it. At least he knows what to expect.

Harry is vaguely aware of Dumbledore speaking, but whatever it is has failed at catching his attention. Knowing Dumbledore, it's something that wouldn't have made sense to him anyway – or something that would have made him angry. At the world, and its fairness. Not Dumbledore. Usually. He's halfway through his sentence when the Floo roars to life and bathes the room in green light.

His father steps out first, looking for all the world a king of lions.

"_Harry_ _-_ " he crosses the room with long, quick strides, gathering his son up into his arms and holding him tight. "Your mother will be here soon. She went to get your brother."

Harry nodded, feeling the sting of tears building up behind his eyes. All of the stress was hitting him at once, fatigue settling into his limbs with the warmth of his father's heart. "Dad, I didn't - I would have never - "

"I know, son. Your mother, too."

After the interrogation he'd suffered at the hands of the headteachers and Ministry employees, the sheer relief of hearing that he'd not even had to _tell_ his parents he'd never do something as stupid as submit his name for the Triwizard Tournament drained all the energy out of him. Like for the past… _however_ long it had been, his body had just been running on panic and adrenaline, and hearing that cut the strings off his marionette.

James let go of him, keeping a hand on his arm as he sank back into his chair.

"I don't want Lily to miss this," he tells - rather than asks - Dumbledore, sitting in a chair that either Harry had not noticed or had not been there before. "But you need to explain to me how this happened, and what your plan is to keep my son safe at your school."

Dumbledore is old. He had been old since the day Harry and William had been born. But sitting here, under James' scrutiny, Harry is struck with two realizations – one, that he is finally seeing the man who'd forged a path through the war for his family in his stony features, hard eyes. And two, that Dumbledore… well, he looks _older_ than his years, and if that is any indication, then he is hiding something. Or biding his time. Either way, there is news that needs to be heard that he does not want to deliver, and Harry does not like it.

He is, momentarily, saved by the door to his office swinging open with a creak. His mother strides through the door, conjuring two chairs without so much as a moment of hesitation, and his brother follows closely with significantly less grace. But he's just as worried – Harry only admits it to himself, but he feels slightly better about this situation now. He doesn't need any reassurance that his brother is on his side on this one, seeing it.

"I told you something would happen this year if you weren't careful, Albus, did I not?" Lily's stern, the edges of her voice sharpening to match the cold expression on her face. "Every year, my boys have dealt with things that no school-aged child should have to face, and you invited the Triwizard Tournament to Hogwarts regardless."

"Yes," the lines of Dumbledore's face grow harsher. He looks tired now. "The Age Line was a - rather successful - attempt at discouraging underage students from entering their own names, but I admit I made a mistake. I did not foresee the possibility of someone entering your son's name against his will, and for that I must apologize."

Fortunately for him, he's sincere about the sentiment despite that it cannot change the situation that has come to pass. Like they said earlier, the Goblet initiates a magically binding contract. His sincerity cannot change that Harry seems to be trapped in a contract for a life-threatening tournament that he didn't sign up for to begin with.

Despite his sincerity, it's clear just what his parents think of the apology. His sincerity only saves him from a lambasting – it does not bestow forgiveness upon him.

"Apologies are all well and good, but they don't explain why he is bound to this Tournament when he's not the one who entered," Lily lays her hand over Harry's, squeezing it tight as if to reassure herself that he is not in any immediate danger. "The Goblet is a powerful and _intelligent_ magical artifact – surely, it can identify the signer of any submission?"

Suddenly, the candle flames seem to grow brighter around them. If a way to get him out of the Tournament exists, even just a _loophole_, then his mum can find it!

"There is an idea, however I would caution you against becoming strongly attached to it," Dumbledore is every piece the wizened wizard and encouraging mentor, but something's different about this meeting as opposed to others. Like he's almost impatient. "The Goblet was confunded by a powerful witch or wizard in order to accept a fourth school's Champion, in this case Harry. It may in the past have only accepted submissions penned by the hopeful candidates, but we cannot assume it did so on this occasion."

"So we'll keep looking for a way out. In the meantime, Harry will get all the help he needs to be well prepared for the tasks, and _you_, Albus, will give him information." James levels him with a hard stare when he looks ready to argue. "I've read past accounts of the Tournament, it's a well known secret that the Headteachers tell their Champions what to prepare for. It won't be a fair fight already, with Harry being three years younger than the other Champions – we're not even all that concerned with _fairness_ anyway, are we?"

It goes unsaid that they all just want him to survive the tasks.

The conversation drags on with his parents arguing with the Headmaster about what he will be doing to support Harry, and he tunes them out. It's not that he doesn't want to be involved in making these decisions for his own life – he's _fourteen_ after all, hardly a child – but he's beginning to crash and focusing is a hard-won accomplishment. They seem to have finally come to some sort of an agreement when William's voice cuts through the haze.

"Why would someone put Harry's name in the Goblet anyway?" He sounds nervous, like he's unsure if it's a stupid question or not, but Harry's been wondering that this whole time himself.

Why _would_ someone put his name in the Goblet? True, he's one of the children that were there the night that Voldemort was vanquished, but he's not the one they consider the _savour_ of magical Britain. True, he's been there every time William gets himself into a predicament again, and he _is_ the resourceful one that makes it so they get out alive at the end – not for nothing, but Will's strategy to anything is _hit it 'til it falls down_, and learning magic changed nothing. There's a time and place for the blunt method, but facing down a shade of Voldemort required some finesse.

It has to be something to do with the prophecy; their parents had told them about it when they were younger, not to scare them but to explain why _they_ had become the family that had to deal with stares whenever they went to Diagon Alley. The prophecy itself was only known to a handful of people who were concerned with it – their family, the other family, and Dumbledore, who'd heard it – but it wasn't common knowledge. But Voldemort had come after them when they were babies because of it. _William_ was the baby that Voldemort had wanted. And every year at Hogwarts since, something had happened that was related to Voldemort. So this had to be because of him as well.

So why would _he_ want Harry?

"I… regret that I have made another mistake," is an encouraging way for Dumbledore to start off what Harry's sure will be another world-turning reveal. "The Goblet of Fire is an exceptionally powerful magical object, and as such… it has properties that are not common knowledge. When there is potential confusion regarding the person named as Champion, it is able to alter the original parchment to clarify beyond a doubt who the Champion is. I expect the person who entered Harry's name has a flair for the dramatics," which is a roundabout way of confirming what everyone in the room already knew: Voldemort. "And when the Goblet of Fire expelled the parchment that selected Harry as a Champion, it did not originally say his name."

Silence falls over the room, even the portraits pretending to sleep on the walls being rather obvious about listening in.

"Originally, it said _The Boy-Who-Lived_."

* * *

Hi, it's 4:45 AM, I've had too much caffeine and I got hit with this plot bunny. It's short, unedited, unreviewed. Happy January 2nd.


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